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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236687">Lands, Lords and Ladies, lost beyond the Sea.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn'>bunn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Elves in History [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Fall of Arthur - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age of the Arthurian Neverwhen, Arthurian Incest, F/M, M/M, So many corrigans, corrigans, dubcon Guinevere/Lancelot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:00:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A reborn High King of the Noldor joins King Arthur's court, and learns something unexpected about the Queen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fingon &amp; Lancelot du Lac, Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo, Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Elves in History [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1201528</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Out of the West that is forgotten</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/gifts">LadyBrooke</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by LadyBrooke's most inspiring Map of the Lost, for Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020.  Thanks to elwinfortuna for invaluable beta assistance.</p><p>He isn't much spoken of nowadays, but the Lancelot-Grail prose cycle tells of a knight named Galehaut, a half-giant king from the Distant Lands, conquerer and king of the land of Sorelois, originally an enemy  who becomes a dear friend, perhaps even a lover of Lancelot, and was responsible for Lancelot ending up with Guinevere.  I have adapted his story to make it fit my purposes. </p><p>Galehaut's a different character entirely to Galahad, who is Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Tale. There is no definitive Arthurian canon or setting as such, and Tolkien's Fall of Arthur is pretty brief, so I've filled it out with all sorts of shiny things that I found in legends of all Ages.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Fingon looked out across the misty lake, wondering whether to pull on his boots, collect some like-minded friends and venture out to go hunting.  Undecided, he looked back towards the fireplace, where Maedhros’s long limbs were sprawled on the settle. </p><p>“Go,” Maedhros said, without looking up from whatever he was reading. “I’m warm and comfortable here, but you have very obviously had enough of sitting still.”</p><p>“Hm,” Fingon replied, looking out doubtfully at mist wreathed over dark water, and tall reeds grey with dew. The dark shadow of a wading bird took off and flew heavily away, dark against the cloudy sky, calling shrilly. </p><p>Maedhros put down the sheaf of papers. “Or is it that you’ve had enough of hunting, and of mountains, and perhaps even of Elves?”</p><p>“Pfft. I never have enough of mountains.”</p><p>“But you have had enough of hunting, and of Elves.” </p><p>“If you want tact, you could try not looking into my mind,” Fingon suggested, and grinned to take the edge off it.</p><p>“You could take the road to Middle-earth. Go out for a while along the paths that lead to the Round World of Men. Have adventures. I’m sure both you and Middle-earth would be much the happier for it.” </p><p>“I had thought of that. But.”</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“Last time I left you on your own, it didn’t end well.” </p><p>“Last time...? Oh.  But that was... different. Anyway, I am hardly on my own.”</p><p>“In this specific context, I’m only counting family members I can trust to say ‘Maedhros no!’ with some chance that you will listen to them,” Fingon told him. </p><p>Maedhros raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to invite your father to stay?”</p><p>Fingon laughed. “That seems a little excessive, but now you’ve mentioned it, my fingers have begun itching to write to Lalwen.  I can’t talk you into coming with me?” </p><p>Maedhros shook his head, with a rare smile. “I have had more than enough of adventure. I have had a bellyful of Middle-earth, and will be entirely happy to sit and watch the mists swirl and the fire burning. But that doesn’t mean you have to do the same.  Go, and come back and tell me about it.”</p><p>Fingon gave him a stern look. “The fire burning?  You aren’t...”</p><p>Maedhros shook his head, smiling more brightly, if with, perhaps the hint of a fragile edge, if you knew him well enough. “Only in the sense of warmth, I promise.  I’ll be here, waiting.” He hesitated. “Only... you will be careful?”</p><p>Fingon huffed incredulously.  “Russandol himself has the nerve to say to <em> me, </em> ‘be careful’?!”</p><p>Maedhros’s mouth twitched at the corner, which was what Fingon had hoped for. “It takes one to know one, or so they say.  I fully believe that you have more than enough strength of will to return to and leave Mandos again six times over if you found a suitably pressing reason to do so, but Námo is said to be reluctant to give up his visitors the second time. I don’t think he’d find my name on a petition very convincing.” </p><p>“Nonsense!” Fingon said bracingly. “My father tells me that you are absolutely Námo’s favorite of your entire house.”  That won a real laugh. “But yes, of course, I will be careful.”</p><p>*******</p><p>Those few elves that still journeyed from time to time to Middle-earth often took the old sea-route, but Fingon had never cared much for travelling by sea. </p><p>He took up his harp instead, took his favorite horse, and went roaming, looking for a place where the mists gathered and moved oddly, where the wind had a strange hint to it of other shores and other peoples, where the shadows moved in unfamiliar ways.  When he found one, he began to play softly as he walked, remembering the woodlands of Beleriand in the days of his hope, remembering the roads that had led beyond the mountains, that he had never had the leisure to follow. Following the threads of music as they wound through into a different shape, the shape of harpsong falling into a world that was, somehow, as round as a ball. </p><p>He had wondered if the ball-ness of it would feel strange, and it did, for a moment or two, but then he was accustomed to it, and he was only standing beside his curious horse in a wet green woodland filled with ferns, with his sword on his belt, a harp in his hand, and a great curiosity in his heart. </p><p>It was late afternoon, so far as he could tell from the light, and far in the distance beyond the swaying leaves and birdsong, he could just hear a familiar noise. Voices crying out in fear, the clash of metal on metal.</p><p>He stowed the harp carefully in its bag and drew his sword with a deliberately wolfish smile. Middle-earth was shadowed, and yet still fair, and its perils could be as fair as the rest. </p><p>******</p><p> </p><p>The battle was a small one.  Men —  farmers with bows and pitchforks — were defending small thatched homes and frightened children from what looked to be a ragged force of other Men, perhaps outlaws, from the look of them; they were armed, but not well, and had a mean and vicious look about them. </p><p>Fingon observed the situation carefully from the cover of the trees — he had learned his lesson about rushing over-swiftly into battle. Having picked a side, he stepped out in one swift movement, and took the outlaw leader’s head. </p><p>The rest were clearly not expecting properly-armed resistance.  They took a couple of stumbling steps, looking at one another, and then, as one, fled. </p><p>Fingon turned to his new allies, who were staring up at him, wide-eyed. Suddenly one of them stepped forward, fell to his knees and began babbling in a language that was entirely unfamiliar to him.  Well, the way Men spoke would have changed a good deal, of course, certainly from the language of the House of Hador, and even from the speech of the Ring-bearers, by now.  He made soothing gestures with his left hand and listened carefully, watching the surface of the man’s mind for hints as to what he was saying.</p><p>“No,” he said, after a while. “No, I’m not your lord, and I’m certainly not a king! I am only ... visiting from my own distant land, and thought to bring you aid against your attackers.” </p><p>Now they were all gathered around him, all gabbling away enthusiastically, men, women, children, all of them a good two feet shorter than he was. </p><p>Finrod would probably have handled this sort of thing much better, he thought.  </p><p>But at least he had put an end to their immediate danger.  He took a rag from the fallen outlaw’s clothing to clean his sword: they all stepped back comically in alarm at that.   He made another calming gesture, and enquired their names, which was always a good way to settle a crowd. Since there might just still be stories of his own deeds echoing through the years, he gave them the Sindarin byname <em> Galadhall </em>for himself, since he had indeed been hidden in the trees before he approached them.</p><p>It was some time before he realised that he had just become the leader of a rebellion against the local king and his tax collectors, and by the time he was entirely sure that was what was happening, it was far too late to stop it. </p><p>In any case, he was not sure that stopping it was the right thing to do. This might be the Age of Men, as all the prophecies and tales agreed, but some of them seemed to be making a terrible mess of it. </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>Several months later, when the summer rains were drenching down across the rolling green fields and the blue hills, hiding the seas with a grey curtain of mist, the land of Sorrellois had a new king.  He was, everyone said, the son of a giant, for he was taller far than any man who walked the Isle of Britain, with a fair face and a kindly fire in his eyes. </p><p>You could see he was a king by his fine sword, the gold woven in his long hair, and his shining shield, worked with silver stars and shining blue enamel. For who but a king would have such things? </p><p>He was a just and noble king, the new king Galehault.  The kind of king that Sorrellois had longed for under bad old king Gloier, who had squeezed the farmers for every morsel to fill his treasuries, or his father, King Loholt, who had, against all right and tradition, sold free men as slaves rather than fighting off the raiders that came flocking like greedy geese across the Silver Sea to Sorrellois. </p><p>King Galehault, on the other hand, had taken a small party of men with him down to the beaches, had burned two of the raiders’ ships and sent the rest off with their tails between their legs, speaking in hushed tones of his ferocity.  </p><p>King Galehault had gone up to the old copper mines, laid his hand on the rock, and with no more trouble than that, found a rich new seam for the miners to follow.  He had set up a widow’s pension with the money, and had taken a miner’s orphan as a page, which of course meant that everyone in Sorrellois who could afford it wanted to do the same.  </p><p>King Galehault had played his marvellous harp for old Ywain Bullwinkle, and cheered the old codger up so much that he had actually bought a drink for everyone who worked on his farm for the first time since Old Mother Bullwinkle had died. </p><p>King Galehault came up with a judgement between Ygraine the Apples and Ygraine the Cheese, the Two Contentious Women of the Isle of Sorrellois. It was so cunningly worded that it almost put an end to their disputations.  They both agreed the judgement was unfair, and were almost united in their indignation against the King, but it was still a great achievement. </p><p>Galehault was, everyone said, like one of the great kings out of the old stories.  The kind you didn’t get any more, except for Arthur, of course.  And Arthur, or so the latest word went now from Logres, might be a great king and a hero who had beaten back the Saxon terror, but he had also slept with his sister.  That certainly meant he was about to stop being a good king and turn into a bad one.   </p><p>Galehault showed no signs yet of wanting to sleep with anyone, and apparently was without sisters. Truly, Sorrellois had become a fortunate isle. </p><p> </p><p>******</p><p>Fingon most certainly had not come to Middle-earth to become a king again, but he was not one to leave a job half-done. In a year of the Sun, or perhaps two, he was confident they would have both a Shiremoot and a Mayor established more or less in the manner that Samwise Gamgee had described, and he had high hopes that he would leave Sorrellois a much happier and more peaceful place than he had found it. </p><p>But when the lapwings began to cry in the still cool evenings as the sun set in red glory along the shores of Sorrellois, word came to him that an envoy from a rival king had demanded his presence in the lands across the strait. Somewhat irked, he gathered together a force of the Men of Sorrellois, who were now becoming an increasingly convincing host, and took ship. </p><p>The envoy awaiting him on the long white shores when they came to shore the next morning was far from alone. His host was near the size of Fingon’s, and it was clear from his first contemptuous words that if Fingon had brought fewer people with him, he would have regretted it. </p><p>“So you’re the pirate who’s taken over Sorrellois?” the young man said, looking Fingon up and down insultingly. He was dark-haired, well-armed and looked distinctly pleased with himself, despite his long, lopsided face and missing tooth. </p><p>“I am Galehault of the Distant Isle, currently the commander of the Isle of Sorrellois,” Fingon replied evenly.  “And who are you?”</p><p>“Who am I?  I am Lancelot of the Lake, a Knight of King Arthur — though most people know that. What happened to Gloier?  I’ve been sent to tell him his tribute is overdue.” </p><p>“I happened to Gloier,” Fingon told him. “And<em> I </em> have made no agreement to pay tribute to anyone.  Sorrellois has had a deal of paying tribute, and far too little care and courtesy for it.  That changes now.” </p><p>Lancelot gave him a tired look, then laughed shortly.  “Another one? Fine.” </p><p>And then, abruptly, Lancelot’s armoured men were moving hastily, and the Men of Sorrellois, wide-eyed, were shuffling into position and tightening their grip on spears and axes. </p><p>Fingon did the only thing he could think of to prevent a general battle.  He stepped hastily forward. “I demand single combat!” he cried in a voice so loud that it gave the opposing force pause for a moment.  He drew his sword, and glared at Lancelot. </p><p>Lancelot shrugged, and waved his own men back. “Your choice,” he said, drawing his own sword with startling confidence. “Are you sure you want to risk it? I’m Arthur’s champion.  You’re a big man with a fine sword and a very lovely shield, but I doubt you’ve met anyone like me in battle.”</p><p>Fingon laughed in answer, and resolved that he would not kill this surprisingly likeable little Man, if he could possibly avoid doing so.  </p><p>Lancelot was swift, and strong, and very skilled, but then so was Fingon. The match was more even than he had expected, but after a while, Lancelot was clearly tiring.  “Surrender?” Fingon suggested.  </p><p>Lancelot laughed.  “You’re good but not..that good.” He took advantage of the words to hook a foot around Fingon’s ankle, and came within the width of a blade of bringing him down on the pale sand of the beach. The Men of Sorrellois gasped, and Lancelot’s cheered, then Fingon found his footing again, and both sides fell silent.</p><p>“I <em> am </em> that good,” Fingon said, swaying backwards away from Lancelot’s next blow.  “I really am. But honestly, I don’t want to kill you.” </p><p>Lancelot stepped backwards, too, breathing heavily. “And I’m coming to the same conclusion. Killing you would be a terrible waste. Arthur needs men like you. No wonder poor old Gloier didn’t stand a chance.”</p><p>Fingon kept his sword ready, poised and watching, but did not attack. “<em> Poor old </em> Gloier was a scoundrel who kept his people hungry and collected taxes with the sword. You don’t look very different, to me.”</p><p>Lancelot dropped the tip of his sword, and looked indignant. “Oh, that’s unfair! If it weren’t for Arthur, this whole land would be overrun by Saxons by now, and good luck if your farmers have to eat their leavings! Keeping knights fed and equipped for defence can’t be done on sea-mist and grass, you know!”</p><p>“Yes,” Fingon admitted. “I do know... Shall we stop fighting and discuss this matter further?  I’d like your word that I and my friends of Sorrellois here will not be hurt.” </p><p>Lancelot heaved a deep breath, and drove his sword home into the scabbard. “You have it,” he said, as a page brought him a cloth to wipe his sweating face. “Phew.  I’m getting too old for this sort of thing on a hot day.”</p><p>Fingon grinned at him.  “Let’s sit down and get our breath back. I want to hear about these Saxons of yours.” </p><p>*****</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Fingon had not intended to linger so long in Middle-earth, not this time. But once he had made alliance with Lancelot, and made arrangements with him for the protection of the Isle of Sorrellois, there still seemed to be a great deal to be done.  </p><p>The Island of Britain where Lancelot’s lord Arthur reigned as High King was threatened by invaders out of the East, Saxons, they were called. They burned farms, seized men as slaves, and would swiftly take the whole land to be their own if they were not opposed.  The defenders were few, and growing fewer, and they were riven by their own disputes.  It seemed a familiar problem. So far, they had never come as far West as Sorrellois, but that day might come. </p><p>Fingon appointed a Mayor to support the new-minted Moot-Council of Sorrellois as his regent, and he, his horse, and his page set out beside Lancelot to meet the High King of the Island of Britain. </p><p>*****</p><p>The land had changed unrecognisably since he and Maedhros had walked in Middle-earth as the enemies of the One Enemy, and there was much that was new to learn. It felt odd, at first, walking among the smaller Men of these latter days. When they came down at last out of the hills to the walled City of Legions where Arthur’s host were encamped, Fingon found himself the tallest person there by over a head of height: Men stared and children pointed.  Fingon gave them a glittering smile and walked with his head up.  If he was to be a spectacle, he might as well be spectacular.</p><p>Arthur himself, when they found him near the river looking over some work on the tall redstone walls, was the tallest of his men, though that only meant that he was nearly of a height with Húrin, who had been considered of less than average height in Beleriand.  He looked rather like Húrin, too, the same fair hair, and something about his voice sometimes reminded Fingon uncomfortably that he had led Húrin to war, and that the Enemy had made Húrin suffer for it terribly.  </p><p>There was another uncomfortable resemblance too, one that had been rumoured all the way to Sorrellois. As a young man, ignorant of his father’s name, Arthur had spent the night with his half-sister Morgan, and got a child with her. The echo of Húrin’s little lad Túrin, who Fingon remembered as a child of six or seven years, and his daughter Nienor could not be clearer.  They had been cursed by the dragon that Fingon had failed to slay, and had come to one another as strangers, just as Arthur had come to his sister Morgan as a stranger. </p><p>But Fingon said nothing of that, of course. Lancelot introduced him as a foreign king, the new lord of Sorrellois. </p><p>“For now,” Fingon added hastily. “For now I am Lord of Sorrellois. Their old lord was unjust, and so his people rose against him.”</p><p>Arthur looked up at Fingon, and raised pale eyebrows. “I can certainly see why they picked you instead of Gloier,” he said candidly. “But.. for now? I hope you don’t feel that the Isle of Britain also has an unjust ruler and would be better off under your rule?” </p><p>Fingon laughed. “I don’t know you.  How therefore can I say how just you are?”</p><p>“A puzzle for the ages,” Arthur agreed, sharp blue eyes thoughtful. “Are you planning to stay and test my justice for yourself then, my lord Galehault?” </p><p>Fingon looked around at the river, the foreshore with its fishing boats, the banks green with meadows filled with glossy cattle and their well-fed herders. “If you can tell a man from his lands and from the reputation that goes before him, you are no Gloier. But no, not that.  I meant that I have set up a council to rule in Sorrellois, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t do at least as well at it as I should.  I have no desire to be a king of Men.”</p><p>“Really!” Arthur seemed surprised at that, and his sharp face was intense with interest. “A council... like the ancient Senate of Rome? Or more like a lord’s council here in Britain... or the Althing of the Saxons?” </p><p>Fingon blinked. “Sadly, my lord Arthur, I have no knowledge of any of these precedents: I come from a very distant land.  But I hear from Lancelot here that Sorrellois and the whole Isle of Britain has an enemy in these Saxons, and so I have come to find out more about it, and perhaps aid you if I can.” </p><p>Arthur smiled warmly, and Fingon thought again of Húrin. “Aid in war is something I am sorely in need of — and you certainly look like you would put the fear of God into the Saxons.” </p><p>“His skills match his size, too,” Lancelot put in. “He very nearly had me.” </p><p>“I would have done, if you had not cried peace!” Fingon said. </p><p>“Lancelot cried peace!” Arthur looked incredulous at that. </p><p>“It was more of a mutual decision,” Lancelot explained hurriedly. “We came to the conclusion that the pair of us would be much better employed fighting the Saxons than one another, and so we came to join you in doing so.” </p><p>“And you would fight in another man’s wars, Galehault? Are you sure? And what do you want for it?  I warn you I can’t pay as generously as I’d like. I spend half my time trying to wring men and supplies from the princes of Britain to keep the Saxons’ teeth from all our throats, and most of the other half trying to prevent them taking offence at one another. ” </p><p>Fingon smiled at familiar memories. “From time to time you get a volunteer, even when the future looks dark, and hiding seems the wiser choice. I’m one of those: I didn’t come here for gold.  But tell me, what is the immediate threat?  I’ve seen no armies as we rode here.” </p><p>“Good,” Arthur said, looking north and east across a wide shining loop of the river. “But you were coming from the south and west, and the Saxons are north-east of us.  They are three days' march away at the most. Maybe less.  Tomorrow we may be under siege, here in the City of Legions.  But it may be that we will march out to meet them.  I am waiting on the reports of the scouts — if any of them make it back today.”</p><p>“In that case,” Fingon said, “ I ask as my payment only that you let me march out with you, and prove myself in battle.” </p><p>Arthur grinned at him. “That, I can afford.”  </p><p>Fingon smiled back. Túrin and Nienor had both of them been self-slain when at last Glaurung’s plot was revealed, and their child unborn with them.  Arthur lived, and if Fingon had anything to do with it, would go on doing so for the sake of Húrin’s memory. </p><p> </p><p>******</p><p> </p><p>The battle went well, as far as these things ever could. The Saxons were more numerous, but many of Arthur’s host were fighting to defend their homes, just as Húrin had fought nobly for Dor-lómin. They had the tall red walls of the City of Legions to fall back on, and good supplies, while the Saxons had been long on the trail. </p><p>It was not so hard to throw them back, and then Fingon joined the pursuit with a will.  His horse, by the standard of the horses of the Isle of Britain was swift and tireless, so he found himself at the forefront of the after-battle movements, ensuring that the broken host did not stop or re-group, but kept moving back into the East, just as long ago he and Húrin had harried the orcs to drive them from the blackened plains of Anfauglith, in the days before doom had fallen on them all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Fall of Arthur</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In Camelot, from his high seat at the heart of his great hall, Arthur looked down upon his lords and knights, his priests, his pages, and his servants, his face expressionless, the picture of a noble king, illuminated by the flickering flames. </p><p>There they all were gathered joyfully for the feast: Gawaine, Gaheris and Agravaine, sharing some heroic tale of adventure. Lancelot laughing with his dear friend Galehault of the Distant Isles and Griflet son of Don. Elyan and his father Bors discussing seriously with Gornemant of Gohort and Palamedes under the watchful eye of the Lady Elaine.  Meliant and Safir were playing at dice, with an eager audience of the ladies Lynette and Olwen urging them on.  </p><p>Near the fire in the place of honour on a fine sheepskin draped over the bench, sat Taliesin himself, not singing yet, but striking small sweet notes from his harp as he tuned it with a look of deep attention on his face. </p><p>It should have been a joyous scene, if it was not for the ever-present thought of the person that was not there. </p><p>If Mordred was present, then it was impossible not to remember who he was, and why.  Impossible not to think of Mordred’s mother Morgan, and the spell that she had cast (it must have been a spell. There was no other choice: Arthur was no monster, even if he had sired a demon upon his strange, fey half-sister...) </p><p>But when he was not there, it was impossible not to remember that Mordred was Arthur’s only heir, his only hope of preserving the land that he had built beyond his own short mortal lifetime.  And Mordred, Arthur was almost certain, was intriguing with the Saxons. </p><p>It should have been a joyous scene, his wife beside him, his companions around him, and the enemy at last set to flight.  It would be a joyous scene, if not for Mordred. </p><p>Guinevere got up, and went down into the hall to speak a few laughing words with Lancelot about some small matter of the court.  It was good that they were such dear friends. Lancelot had no wife, and Guinevere brought a joy like the light of stars to everyone who knew her. </p><p>If only he and Guinevere had an heir... Even now, that might make the difference, might mean that not all he had done and made would inevitably be lost, as the Saxons came sweeping in.  A trueborn son of the King and Queen could rightfully claim even Mordred’s allegiance. </p><p>But Guinevere had never quickened, and Morgan had. </p><p>His queen caught his eye and smiled, and Arthur, charmed by her smile as he always was, took her hand as she led him out into the hall to begin the dance. </p><p>*****</p><p>Later that evening, when many dances had been danced under the evergreen leaves garlanding the rafters, and many pints of ale been drunk, there was still no sign of Mordred, and Arthur began to relax, at least until Lancelot, at the end of a dance, came to speak to him.  The hall was lively with dancing knights and ladies, with flying feet and the sound of harp, flute and drum, but Lancelot lowered his voice until only Arthur could possibly hear him. </p><p>“He’s not in Camelot,” Lancelot told him quietly.  Lancelot, who was Arthur’s dear friend, of course knew of his concerns about Mordred. “I just heard he left this afternoon.” </p><p>Arthur was careful not to let his face betray his worry. “Gone to somewhere that should concern us?” </p><p>“He gave Bedivere the slip,” Lancelot said and shook his head apologetically. “But on the whole matter, I...” he made an embarrassed face, and pushed his forelock back. </p><p>“Come on. Out with it!” </p><p>“You know that I...This is going to seem a curious way to start the tale, but bear with me.”</p><p>“Go on then,”</p><p>“After my father died, I had a somewhat... unconventional childhood.” </p><p>Arthur shrugged. “You were fostered by the Lady of the Lake, of whom there are dark mutterings, but I’ve never heard that she hurt the weak, or broke a law, or connived with the Saxons, and so I’m inclined to like her.  What of it?” </p><p>“She is a corrigan,” Lancelot said, flatly, almost under his breath. </p><p>“A cor... ah.” Arthur said, catching himself before he said something that might catch at listening ears.  “The fays of ancient Brociliande?  One of the nine?”  This was a cautious response.  The corrigans were sung of as beautiful women, who danced, with flowers in their hair, and robes of white wool, around a fountain, by the light of the full moon. But they were also dark and terrible: stealers of children, enchanters of men, hags who would bewitch a man and demand his favour, and then drain all life from his body when he lay with them. The idea that Lancelot, of all people, had been fostered by a corrigan was startling in the extreme. </p><p>Lancelot shrugged again and then frowned, his lopsided face tense and serious. Arthur smiled, to make it clear that whatever they were talking about, the King was not taking it too seriously. “I don’t know if there were ever nine of them. But... well, the thing is... the lady Morgan’s mother Ygerna, she was a corrigan too. And her daughter takes after her.” </p><p>“I knew it!” Arthur felt the rushing sense of relief. “She learned a spell, and cast it on me.”</p><p>“Not... entirely. Or at least, I don’t know about that. She is a corrigan.  She can bear no child to anyone she loves, to anyone who loves her. If she desires one, she must either steal the child, or bargain for the gift of one from a man who is not her own, or enmesh him if she can. ” </p><p>Arthur nodded and smiled his public smile, and said “That’s absurd.” </p><p>“Absurd or not, it’s what they do. Some part of their nature that they can’t change, or at least, they believe they can’t.”</p><p>Arthur rolled his shoulders in discomfort. “The priests would call that sin, and say that corrigans are hell-spawned.” </p><p>Lancelot looked at him steadily. “But you would not, if only for my sake. My foster-mother Nimuë isn’t a demon, Arthur, I am pretty clear on that. But I’m not talking about her.  The bargain that a corrigan makes is fertility, in return for a night of passion and the child that comes from it. You have had the night of passion, and the child that came was Mordred.  So, under the law that governs corrigans, she owes you the gift of children for yourself.” </p><p>Arthur blinked. “You are saying that I should ask Morgan for a child? Lancelot, are you entirely mad?  Morgan gave me a child before, and I thank all the saints that Guinevere has forgiven me for it! One Mordred is more than enough.”</p><p>Lancelot shook his head impatiently.  “No.  I’m saying that Morgan is bound to give you and Guinevere children, if you go to her and ask her.  She has already had her prize, and now she owes you payment for it.”  </p><p>“There has to be a catch.”  And yet the prospect was an intriguing one.  Would even Mordred have grown up to be so... Mordred, if Arthur and Guinevere had had the shaping of him?  If they had raised him, instead of Morgan, who was bitter sore that womanhood had deprived her of the High Kingship that her blood would otherwise have given her, and had been all her life.  She had poisoned Mordred against his father from the day he was born, forming a child into a weapon aimed at her brother’s head, and there was no winning him back now. </p><p>But a child... the trueborn son he had dreamed of, a child of his marriage and his kingship?  Neither he nor Guinevere were yet old. There might still be time to build a legacy that would last. </p><p>“There is,” Lancelot’s quiet voice was gentle.  “Sometimes they kill the man they sleep with.  But that was all over long ago: if she were going to kill you, she would have drained your life that night, and you would not have seen another nightfall. You need a real heir, there’s no question of that.  And I can’t stand to see you flinch when you look to see if he is in the room.” </p><p>“But I have no idea where Morgan is now. How can I do this, even if I wanted to?”</p><p>“We don’t know where Morgan is,” Lancelot said thoughtfully.  “But Mordred does.”  </p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>Fingon was enjoying being one of the knights of King Arthur. Life as Galehault of Camelot, a friend of the King and of Lancelot, had proved considerably simpler than rearranging matters on Sorrellois had been.  It was good to have a cause to fight for, one that he could believe in, and Arthur made a worthy High King.  </p><p>What was more, after they had ridden out to their great victory at Badon Hill, where Arthur’s cavalry had smashed the Saxon army and sent them fleeing back to the coast, it seemed entirely possible that they might even win. A very fine thing, that, to have hope of victory, though perhaps it was in the nature of Men and this changeable mortal world that no victory could last for long.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>The King was unexpectedly gone from Camelot.  He had gone away with only a couple of his closest servants, and there was much discussion throughout Camelot of where Arthur could possibly have gone, and why. </p><p>Fingon did not take part in any of this discussion. He knew.  Lancelot had told him, one evening when both of them had drunk deep.  Lancelot was torn in two, wondering if he should have said anything to the King of the corrigan’s laws, and sorely in need of a friend to talk to about it. </p><p>“So, these corrigans,” Fingon said casually, once Lancelot had with many paused for consideration, unburdened himself. “What kind of people are they?  They seem to have some odd customs.” </p><p>“Nimuë has always been kind enough to me.  She took me in after my father died and the Saxons came sweeping into Benwick like a bitter tide,” Lancelot told him.  “We lived then... by the lake, or perhaps in it.  I was never quite sure how much was under the water. A hidden land, sometimes there, and sometimes not, beyond the ken of Saxon-kind.”</p><p>“It sounds very strange, like nothing I have ever heard of,” Fingon lied cautiously. “And they do not marry, is that right?  They bewitch men to their beds, then either send them away, or kill them, and get children that way?” </p><p>“That is their custom,” Lancelot agreed. “Though I never saw Nimuë do anything of that kind.  The tales say that a corrigan can change her form, from beautiful maiden to hideous hag, and will do so if you take their bargain and go to their bed.  But for me, Nimuë had white hands and a youthful face, and she laughed when I asked her if she sometimes wore a different face. Though, she has changed very little. When first I saw her, I was six, and now I am a man grown and have grey hairs starting, and to look at her, you would not think the years had touched her at all.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Fingon said, non-committal. </p><p>Lancelot looked at him sideways. “They don’t tell tales of corrigans in your Distant Isles then?”</p><p>“No.  You truly believe that Morgan can give the King and Queen a child?  Even if she does, Mordred is a man grown.”</p><p>“A man born of incest. Plenty of people think that unlucky, quite apart from his flirtations with the Saxons.” </p><p>Fingon wrinkled his nose, thinking of his nephew Maeglin, and how much Turgon had loved him, and yet been unable to save him.  “Poor sod.” </p><p>Lancelot drained his cup.  “I suppose, from a certain point of view.” </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>Two days later, Fingon was lounging outside the house that he shared with Lancelot.  As one of the King’s chief knights, Lancelot had been given a house for the times when he was in Camelot.  Fingon would have been given one too, for his work at Badon, but Lancelot had no wife or litter of children to fill his hall with noise and life, and nor did Galehault, and so it seemed to make sense to both of them to share.  </p><p>But there was nothing much going on, that warm spring morning, and so Fingon had little to occupy him, other than to listen to the birds singing among the blossom in the apple trees. </p><p>More unusually, Lancelot too was idle.  He appeared around mid-morning, and settled himself comfortably next to Fingon, and they sat there together leaning against the pale lime-washed wall in the spring sunlight, observing the goldfinches quietly for a while, until Guinevere the queen saw them from her window, and came down to join them. </p><p>Guinevere was a private woman, not one to share her joys and woes with the world.  But Lancelot had long been her friend, and since Fingon had become Lancelot’s friend, she counted him as a friend also. They talked of horses and hounds, the small deeds and doings of the people of Camelot: small words for a rare lazy day in the sunshine. </p><p>Until Fingon, assuming that all three of them knew where the King had gone and why, mentioned Morgan, and Arthur’s hope for an heir. </p><p>Guinevere’s face stilled, and her eyes narrowed. </p><p>“<em> What did you just say </em>?”</p><p>“That I hope Arthur’s journey to see the corrigan Morgan will be successful, and you will get the child you desire,” Fingon told her, wondering if he had made a linguistic slip. </p><p>Guinevere’s face was savage. “That’s where he’s gone?  Lancelot, you <em> knew </em> about this?”</p><p>“I...” Lancelot said, wide-eyed.</p><p>“And you didn’t<em> tell </em> me?</p><p>“I assumed you must have discussed it,” Lancelot said, blankfaced.  </p><p>“No,” Guinevere said in a voice that could cut stone. “No, we did not discuss it. Let me make sure I have understood you correctly, Lancelot, Galehault.  My heroic and extremely foolish husband has gone off alone in search of his half-sister, Morgan.  Who is a <em> corrigan </em> . And he has done this because he wants me to have a <em> child </em>?”</p><p>“Yes,” Fingon said.  “My lady Guinevere, forgive me for speaking out of turn, I meant no offence.” </p><p>“You may be the one person in the whole of the Isle of Britain who has actually spoken <em> in </em> turn about this entire matter,” Guinevere said.  Her face was lit with a flame of anger, and her cheeks were pink with it. “Lancelot.”</p><p>There was a note of power in her voice, Fingon observed with alarm, and it plucked Lancelot to his feet almost without his volition.</p><p>“Guinevere,” Lancelot said, and his voice was half-pleading. But her mood was dark, and he had no will to resist her.  Fingon watched, troubled, as she turned and walked away, anger in every line of her, and behind her, with a troubled glance back at him, Lancelot followed.</p><p>If Lancelot had really wanted to, he could have shrugged it off himself. Guinevere was no Lúthien, to sing one of the Valar into sleep and bind him with her voice in his own fortress.  She was only a little half-elven sorceress of the Avari, spinning out charms interwoven with the sound of chickens clucking and the ringing of the bell in the chapel down the hillside. </p><p>But Lancelot was following, step by step, a wide-eyed expression on his face, and a strange sense of amazed delight echoing from him as if he had unexpectedly been offered something he had always longed for, knowing that he could never have. </p><p>“Guinevere.” Fingon spoke quietly, but with all his art, invested the name with the resonance of his long years of life, the strength of Aman and the might that comes with being reborn to a second life. </p><p>Guinevere halted, as if a cord had suddenly snapped taut, and Lancelot stopped and shook his head, as if he had come up out of deep water. </p><p>Guinevere glanced at him and shook her own head, her eyes blazing furious. She clenched a delicate fist and said a word Fingon could not understand, and Lancelot’s eyes went vague and dreaming again. </p><p>“What... who <em> are </em> you?” she demanded. </p><p>“I am one of the Noldor. You might know of me as Fingon.”</p><p>Guinevere shrugged. “Never heard the name. What has that to do with me? Who are the Noldor?” </p><p>Fingon blinked. “The Deep-Elves of Valinor.  Amanyar. The Eldar of Westernesse.” </p><p>Guinevere took a step back, her small fierce face suddenly wary.  “You can’t be. The West-elves all went away long ago —  if they ever existed at all.” </p><p>“I can be, and I am, and that’s why I can snap your enchantments like a spider’s web. Why are you doing this? I thought you loved Arthur. And I thought you were fond of Lancelot, too.  It’s no friendship to use him in this way.” </p><p>Guinevere straightened. “Arthur has gone to his half-sister to demand a child.  He hates her, and he fears her and her son. But still, he went to her, and didn’t say a single word to me about it, as if I were a child to be protected from the truth.”</p><p>“And that means you call Lancelot’s name and lead him away like a dog on a leash? How will that help?”</p><p>“It will help,” Guinevere said, through small sharp white teeth, “Because I can make a child with Lancelot. He will not grudge me one.” </p><p>Fingon felt, despite all his strength and all his years, that he was very much out of his depth. “Guinevere, you are... I don’t know.  An elf? Half-Elven? How can you do this?” </p><p>“He did it to me!” Guinevere exclaimed, furious, and clearly near tears. “I gave him my hand and I gave him my name, and it wasn’t enough. Never enough.  He had to have a child too, even if he had to go to <em> her </em> for it.  <em> Morgan </em>.” she said, spitting out the word.  </p><p>“Not his finest hour, I’ll give you that,” Fingon agreed calmly. “But why not simply have the child with Arthur? I’ll give you that Lancelot looks not wholly unwilling, but...” </p><p>“Idiot!” Guinevere said, in a voice that made it very clear she would have liked to shout.  “I can’t have a child with Arthur. I love him.”</p><p>“That makes no sense. If you love him, why <em> not </em> have a child with him, if you both want one?  Assuming that you do. If you don’t...” </p><p>“Because, you great Western oaf, I am a corrigan of Middle-earth, and just like Morgan, I can have no child with a Man I love. Not if I want to live. I don’t have the strength.  I can have love, or life, or a child, but not all three together with the same Man.” </p><p>“That’s ridiculous!”</p><p>“Is it. Is. It. You sit there, tall and strong with your Old Gods of the West behind you, and you tell me, a corrigan of Middle-earth, that the constraints of my life and survival are ridiculous. You might as well never have been born, for all the Sight you have. I must do this, or lose Arthur, or fade into the shadows, and maybe both will come to me.  Now take your word from me and I will be about my own business.”</p><p>Fingon took a long, careful, and calming breath.  “Guinevere, long ago my sister was trapped into...something that was not wholly unlike this.  I can’t let you do this to Lancelot, you must see that.” </p><p>“Will <em> you </em> guard his morals and warm his bed then, whether he wishes it or no?”</p><p>“No!  No of course not. I have my own faith to keep. But Lancelot is my friend, and I would not see him walk into this...” </p><p>“Let us ask him,” Guinevere interrupted him, facing him as tiny, delicate and ferocious as a wren. “We will ask Lancelot for his choice, shall we? He has been my friend for far longer than he has been yours. I think he’ll agree.” </p><p>Trapped, Fingon could think of no way out except agreement. He was no enchanter, and had no idea whether the constraints she spoke of were binding, or could be escaped. </p><p>And in the weeks and months after that, Lancelot was sometimes in the house that he shared with Fingon at night, and sometimes he was nowhere to be found, and even after Arthur returned, and peace had apparently been restored both between the King and Queen, and across the Island of Britain, Lancelot had a strange look in his eye when he looked upon the Queen at supper, and that was enough to make Fingon think that he would not return to his own home, not yet.  Not though the Saxons had been beaten back, and the fighting was done with for a little while. </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>When Arthur returned to Camelot with the philtre of fertility that he had won with difficulty and much protesting from his half-sister, he thought at first that all was well. He dared to hope that Guinevere would conceive, and that Mordred, who had been unexpectedly helpful in the matter of contacting his mother, would step aside into the role of his younger half-brother’s supporter and protector. Perhaps if he encouraged the boy...</p><p>And then came the night of betrayal.  The night when Mordred came to him, all innocence and concern for the welfare of the King, to say that Guinevere and Lancelot were together, together in a way that could not be misunderstood, could not be seen as the companionship of the King’s friend and his wife, but was something else entirely. </p><p>When he arrived, she was wearing nothing but a blanket, and Lancelot was naked. No possibility of confusion, no hope of a misunderstanding, and Mordred standing there with a slight smile on his face, as no doubt he had intended all along. </p><p>Arthur looked at Guinevere — dear, beloved Guinevere, fair as an elf-woman out of legend, still slender, still poised after all these many years, and remembered vividly how it had been when first her eyes had turned to him. </p><p>He looked at Lancelot, for whom his love was warmer, closer, the love between men who have worked together and seen one another exhausted, troubled, angry.  And he knew that he now had lost both of them, both the wife and the friend had gone away from him together, behind a wall of intimacy that kept him out. </p><p>He looked at Mordred. His son, his half-sister’s son. The thought of it turned his stomach. But that was not Mordred’s fault, it was his own. If he had not turned to Morgan, had known, somehow, of their shared father... Well, then he would never have gone to her (her bright eyes smiling, her hair in the moonlight), and Mordred would never have existed. And Arthur might never have known that Lancelot and Guinevere had built a wall together, to keep him out. </p><p>“Burn her,” he told them, and turned to flee before the pleading could begin, but there was nowhere to flee to. Nowhere where he could escape the grief he had brought down on his own head through making Mordred... what he was. </p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p>Guinevere did not burn.  Of course not. Not one of Arthur’s knights, servants, lords and supporters wanted that, and nor did Arthur. Everyone knew it. So it was hardly a surprise when Gawain came to tell him that Guinevere had escaped with Lancelot, and now they were long gone. </p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>And now the house that had been home to both Galehault and Lancelot was entirely Galehault’s, and Fingon brooded alone, wondering what he could have done differently, while Mordred and Arthur spoke words that were on the surface kindly, and under the surface were full of knives. It hurt his heart to see that, for he could not help seeing in Mordred the echo of his sister’s son.</p><p>When Gawaine suggested that they should take the fight to the Saxons, and sail East before their enemy had time to regroup and return to attack again, it seemed a wise decision. A distraction from internal dissent, a chance for Mordred to prove himself as regent, and for Arthur to unite his men again in battle. Fingon was all for it, and rode eagerly to war in the wild lands of the East. He would rather have ridden beside Lancelot.  But Lancelot was at his home beyond the fens, in Benwick, and Arthur would not hear his name. </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>And so, when the word came to them out of the West that Mordred had risen against his father, had called in allies of both the Saxons and the wild sea-raiders, and had tried to take Guinevere to be his own wife, Fingon felt a terrible sinking in his heart.  The feeling that doom had come upon them all, despite all their hope, was overwhelming. </p><p>Arthur still had hope, of course.  He had pulled his land and his kingship back from defeat before, and he still hoped to do it again. Retake his kingdom and his queen, throw back the Sea Wolves, and build up the land again into something he could hand on... to someone.  A peace that would last, a land that would be remembered. </p><p>But the smell of black smoke was on the wind, and if Fingon closed his eyes and let himself think of it, he could hear in the distance, faint and far, the sound of the drums of the legions of Angband. </p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>When the ship-battle was done, and the land-battle that came after it had ended in bloody misery on the rivershore, and the tide was rising again, carrying blood and filth and bodies with it to Ulmo’s domain, Fingon found himself standing beside Bedivere among the bloody grass and dried seaweed at the river-margin, looking down on the High King of the Isle of Britain and the body of his son, and weeping. </p><p>Arthur himself was not quite dead, though he had a long messy wound running all the way up his thigh. It was bleeding heavily, and Arthur was having trouble breathing too, which probably meant bruising at least, and perhaps another wound that was not visible. </p><p>Fingon’s experience of battlefield medicine was not small, and he did his desperate best to stop the bleeding, but this was beyond his skill. </p><p>Then movement behind him, from the direction of the river, caught his attention, and he turned to see a familiar figure, silver-haired and clear-eyed, wearing a simple pale tunic, approaching from the water-side, with Guinevere beside her. Behind her were some other ladies that Fingon did not recognise. One of them, ignoring everyone living, went silently to her knees beside Mordred's body, and began silently to weep.</p><p>“Celebrían!” Fingon exclaimed, in his own tongue. “If I could have wished for one person to appear at this moment, it would have been you! This is Arthur. He is terribly badly hurt.  Is there anything that you can do?” </p><p>Celebrían bit her lip and knelt beside Arthur, while Guinevere, pale as ice, knelt on the other side and held Arthur’s blood-stained hand.  Celebrían examined the wound and the enchantment that Fingon had tried to set on it with gentle fingers, and as she did it, Fingon could see the work strengthening under her expert touch, lessening the pain and slowing the blood. After a few moments she nodded.  “Yes.  I think so.  Not immediately, but with time...” </p><p>Guinevere interrupted her, demanding, “Will he die?”  </p><p>Celebrían shook her head, and answered in the language of the land. “I think we may save him yet, if we can take him somewhere safe.”</p><p>She looked at Fingon. “Could we take him home, do you think? This is not going to heal easily among the griefs and wars of Middle-earth. If I had Elrond’s help, and all the comforts of Tol Eressëa, it would go much easier on him.” </p><p>“I’m surprised to see you here so far from Tol Eressëa, and without Elrond. What are you doing here, Celebrían?” </p><p>Celebrían smiled.  In her simple clothes with blood on her hands, and her hair caught up in a braid like a crown, she looked far more like her mother than she usually did. Fingon was reminded of a young Galadriel, standing proudly among the princes of the Noldor. </p><p>“You aren’t the only one who is allowed to go off and have adventures, you know! I’ve been talking to these Avari ladies.  Oh! I haven’t introduced them!  This is Nimuë, and <em> this </em> is Morgan, and you know Guinevere already, of course.  I have been trying to persuade them that really, they would find life so much easier in Valinor.  It’s terribly hard on them, living in the round world and having to do the worst sort of things just to stay... well. I won’t talk about that. But honestly Fingon, it’s been terrible for them.”</p><p>Nimuë had gone to kneel beside Morgan, and put an arm around her.  Now, she said, in passable if rather rustic Nandorin; “The Lady Argante came to visit, and to talk with us, and I took thought that perhaps the time to travel west had come at last.” She fell back into the tongue of the land, looking with concern at Guinevere. “Poor Guinevere here was beside herself with fear that her Arthur would fall, and that Lancelot would die with him. And Morgan... well. She didn't mean it to come to this. She loved her son. And so, it seemed that we should come here and do what we could.”</p><p>“But we’re too late,” Guinevere said.  She was still holding Arthur’s hand, and she looked very tired. "Too late for Mordred, too late for Arthur..." </p><p>“Not too late for Arthur,” Celebrían reassured her. “Fingon, is Lancelot...?”</p><p>Fingon shrugged unhappily. “Arthur forbade him to return. I have heard no word from him.” </p><p>Bedivere said quietly; “He would have come, if Arthur had called for him.” And that was certainly true, Fingon thought.  Lancelot would hear the word of this battle in a few days time, when it reached his home in distant Benwick. He would wonder, until he died, if it might have gone differently if he had ignored Arthur’s banishment, and come to his aid anyway.  </p><p>“He’s alive?” Guinevere let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Lancelot lives? I hoped... I didn’t take enough for that.”  Fingon was not entirely sure what she meant by that, but it had echoes that made him think with distaste of the work of the necromancers.  That was a troubling thought indeed, but if anyone could heal whatever the corrigans of this world had become, it was Celebrían and Elrond. </p><p>Arthur opened his eyes. His breathing had steadied to a slower, easier pace.  </p><p>“Who...?” he asked.  Fingon, with some difficulty, explained. </p><p>“So you would have me leave my people, my lords and all my lands, to go to this land of Avallónë?  Forever?”</p><p>Fingon shook his head. “Not forever.  I cannot offer that.  You are of mortal blood, and you cannot live forever in the Isle Beyond the World. No-one can do that but those of us who are born to it. But I can offer you rest and healing, for a while. We will take you to my kinsman, Elrond of Rivendell, who dwells now in Avallónë, in the Lonely Isle.  He is a healer of no mean skill. ” </p><p>Arthur took a slow, struggling breath. “So be it.” He closed his hand around Guinevere’s, and met her eyes. </p><p>Fingon was unsure where the nearest crossing-point might be to his own lands, and in any case, Arthur was in no state to walk or ride.  But the answer was before him.  Prydwen was a mortal ship, but she would ride the Straight Road as well as any swan-ship of Alqualondë. </p><p>“I don’t understand,” Bedivere said.  “Why can the King not be healed here, in his own land that we have fought to hold?” </p><p>Celebrían caught Fingon’s eye and shook her silver head. </p><p>“He is too badly hurt, Bedivere,” Fingon told him, gently, taking him by the shoulder.  Bedivere was exhausted, his hair straggling and stiff with salt, his armour dented, and his boots were thick with the mud of the sea-shore. </p><p>“But he will come back?” Bedivere rallied to demand of him, looking from face to face.  “He will come back to his own land, when he is healed?”  </p><p>Arthur drew a long painful breath, opening his eyes once more, and gesturing to his sword which lay on the ground beside him. “I will come back, Bedivere. Take my sword. Keep it safe for me, until I return.”</p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>In Avallónë, on the Lonely Isle, the sea-mist lay quiet and grey in the fading evening light, and even the waves were small and still, lapping gently at the quays like black glass.  The lights upon the houses and the ships glittered on the dark water, and the mist shaped globes of light around each lamp. Few Elves were abroad at that hour, though somewhere on the clifftop to the south of the ancient haven, a distant voice, silver and ageless, was singing. </p><p>Out of the mist came slowly dipping the red dragon-prow of Arthur’s ship Prydwen, scarred by battle and dripping with the mist, but still proudly upheld, and on her wide decks beside the King’s bed stood the dark forms of three fays of Middle-earth, long-lost by all their kin.  The lamp-light gleamed on the gold woven through the Fingon’s hair, and on the silver crown of Celebrían’s hair, as she stood at the tiller, gently guiding the brave little ship in to rest at last against the quays of Elvenhome. </p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>When Arthur was well enough to rise from his bed in the House of Elrond, at least for a little while each day, Fingon at last returned to his hall.  The mists were still swirling around it, the reed-mace standing sharp and dark along the edges of the mere, and somewhere distantly a lapwing was calling. </p><p>Various of his own people greeted him joyfully as he came through the great heavy doors into the firelit hall.</p><p>Maedhros was no longer reading.  He was making notes, instead, and listening to the music of a friend who was quietly picking out notes on a harp.  He looked up when Fingon came in. “Welcome back!”</p><p>“Thank you!” Fingon said, throwing himself down on a settle next to him, and easing off his boots. “I have had something of an adventure. Middle-earth had changed, and while I was there, it changed a good deal more, as if the land shifted beneath my feet, and the world became a different and colder place.  I have found something that I lost, though I can’t quite put a name to it, and I have lost good friends too. I owe Celebrían a great debt. My heart is sore and will take a while to heal. But it was worth going.” </p><p>“Tell me the rest!” Maedhros said, putting down his pen and paper so he could put an arm around Fingon’s shoulder. "I want to know everything.  Is there no remnant of Beleriand discernable at all?" </p><p>Fingon shook his head, wondering where to begin.  Then he took up the pen and paper. He brushed a stray dark red hair from his shoulder as he did it, and then, on second thoughts, dropped a kiss on Maedhros’s temple. “I’ll draw you a map,” he said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In Layamon's Middle English poem The Chronicle of Britain (c. 1215), Arthur was taken to Avalon by two women to be healed there by an elven queen, a lady named Argante.  I thought that Argante should appear at the end of this story, but I had no idea who that could be, until elwinfortuna helpfully pointed out that 'Argante' means silver, and that if Arthur went away to be healed by a silver queen - that must mean Celebrian, whose name means exactly that!</p><p>I renamed Sorelois to Sorrellois in the tradition of the chaotic medieval scribe,  because I think that's a prettier-shaped word.  In this particular version of the Arthurian story, Sorrellois is the greater island that once existed where the Isles of Scilly now lie, off the southwest tip of the island of Britain, some miles west of Cornwall.  In Roman times, these islands were joined together with a great big low-lying basin in the middle.  At some point during the intervening years, the centre of the island flooded, becoming a lost land with a fringe of surviving islands around the edges.</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
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        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30929690">Afterwards, In Quiet Comfort</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion">lferion</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
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